


coming at you live

by magicsoul (cherishiskisa)



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: (DONT WORRY. ITS OK), (technically it's just implied), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe, Barebacking, Fuck Or Die, Ghost Hunters, Ghostbusting (Ghostbusters), Inspired by Ghostbusters, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Resolved Sexual Tension, Rough Sex, Sex Pollen, Spit As Lube, Wet & Messy, also inspired by a particular changkyun outfit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:42:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27587629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherishiskisa/pseuds/magicsoul
Summary: “I think the ghost did something to me,” Kihyun pants wildly, knowing he doesn’t have much time left before the fever takes him again. “Changkyun, please, get away from me, I don’t want to hurt you.”Changkyun’s cheeks are flushed bright pink, and behind his glasses, his eyes are huge and dark. “But aren’t you in pain?” he asks. “I told you, I want to help you, that’s all I’ve ever wanted. Won’t you let me help?”
Relationships: Im Changkyun | I.M/Yoo Kihyun, side hyunghyuk
Comments: 62
Kudos: 212





	coming at you live

**Author's Note:**

  * For [showmeurteef](https://archiveofourown.org/users/showmeurteef/gifts).



> hello . first, i'll say sorry. second, i'll say it's rae showmeurteef's fault, because they tweeted a pic of changkyun in [this devastating outfit](https://twitter.com/changkijuseyo/status/1327883581931233280) and said something about how he looks silly and they'd never hire him, and then i remembered chris hemsworth's kevin the receptionist in ghostbusters (2016) (the best movie of all time) and then i had some unsavory thoughts and then i wrote this. this is a VERY different changki dynamic than i usually write (in particular the changkyun is very different, inspired by the receptionist character in the movie!!!!) so it was tons of fun, but warning that if youre familiar with my other works and expecting my usual, uh ... this isn't it.
> 
>  **real warning: this is a sex pollen fic, so it naturally has some elements of the dubcon-adjacent. all participants are extremely willing and enthusiastic, but the sex pollen necessarily takes some consent out of the equation. if that sounds upsetting, tread with care!!! also, the sex is unprotected, due to ghosts, which is obviously not the safest sexual practice, do not do as changki do.** otherwise, this fic is SUPER porny, prob one of the porniest things ive ever written, so, like, IM SORRY AGAIN....... title from the baddest by k/da. 
> 
> brief backstory: this is set in an alternate universe where, like, ghosts exist and everyone knows about it. our heroes aren't the actual ghostbusters, but a smaller independent (read: wildly unsuccessful) organization, and they do their best to bust ghosts all over town! >:D also none of the science in here is real lol i just made up random words! no knowledge of ghostbusters is required to understand this fic. 
> 
> ANYWAY ONCE AGAIN IM REALLY SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!! ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!

“For the _fifth_ time,” Kihyun says, talking slowly through clenched teeth, “when the phone rings, _you need to answer it.”_

Changkyun blinks up at him, cute as a button and as smart as one too. “Isn’t that what the answering machine is for?”

 _“You are supposed to be the answering machine,”_ Kihyun grits out.

“But—” Changkyun blinks again, then looks down at the phone. There is a small flashing red indicator: call waiting. “But— then isn’t that a waste of the answering machine?”

“I’m going to kill him,” Kihyun announces to no one since no one fucking listens to him, throwing his hands up in despair. “Is he doing this on purpose?”

“No, Kihyun, he’s not doing this on purpose,” Minhyuk says from across the room. Kihyun whirls to glare at him, and Minhyuk just smiles innocently and ambles on over to see what all the fuss is about. “Changkyun, sweetie?”

“Yes, boss,” Changkyun chirps.

“See how the phone light is on?”

It actually takes Changkyun a moment to identify the light Minhyuk is talking about, but then he nods hard enough to make the phony wire glasses on his nose bounce. “Yes, boss!”

“That means someone’s calling,” Minhyuk explains. “So do you think you could pick up the phone and answer it? Just like we practiced.”

Kihyun’s face wrinkles. When had Minhyuk had time to practice making phone calls with the receptionist? God. They’d hired him to make their lives _easier,_ but all he does is make everything _worse,_ and instead of lightening their burden, he’s added to it, because now they have to double- and sometimes triple-check that he hasn’t fucked everything up, wasting valuable ghost-hunting time on filing paperwork and returning calls. Now, he and Minhyuk watch — Kihyun disgusted, Minhyuk endeared — as Changkyun obediently lifts the handset of the phone and presses it to his ear. “Hello, thank you for contacting the P.P.P.P. — how may I direct your call?” Changkyun recites, also obediently.

He pronounces the initials with the approximate cadence of the opening to Beethoven’s Fifth, but Kihyun would wager his life that the most classical music Changkyun has ever heard in his life has been the soundtrack to various violent video games. “Say the full name,” he hisses, knocking on the corner of Changkyun’s desk to get his attention.

Changkyun’s eyes slide warmly over to him, and his small lips curl up into a smile. “That’s right, the… Paranormal Phenomena Protection Project,” he says, glancing down at the Post-It note where he has it written down and underlined, twice. “Ah, no, I’m sorry— the Ghostbusters are 1-800-555-6666, we’re 1-800-555-6667. Common mistake. It’s the Yellow Pages’ fault. Uh-huh. Uh-huh, I will. Bye now!” And he hangs up.

Kihyun and Minhyuk stand there, flabbergasted. In the ensuing silence, Changkyun beaming up at them like he’s done a great job and is simply waiting for the praise to roll in, Kihyun crosses his arms and closes his eyes to stave off his oncoming headache. “Changkyun,” he says, slowly.

“Yes, boss?”

“You’re supposed to explain _our_ range of services before letting them go,” Kihyun says, opening his eyes only to scowl down at Changkyun. “Also, nobody uses the Yellow Pages anymore.”

“I do, actually,” Minhyuk interjects. “As a doorstop.”

Kihyun’s hands flex with the desire to punch or strangle someone; preferably Changkyun, but beggars can’t be choosers. “Do you even _know_ our range of services, Changkyun?” he continues. “If I held a gun to your head right now and told you to explain the Project, what would you say?”

Changkyun glances down Kihyun’s body as if checking for a concealed weapon. “Well,” he says after a moment, “you guys hunt ghosts and ghouls. Poltergeists, too, I think, or is that the same thing as a ghoul?” His expression is starting to get a little bit dazed, the same way it always does whenever he talks about various supernatural monsters. Freak. “Also, you… want to open a… museum? I’m a little foggy on that part.”

“If you were any foggier, you would be the city of San Francisco,” Kihyun mutters, and Changkyun definitely doesn’t get that the joke is at his expense, but laughs brilliantly anyway. “Minhyuk, _you_ deal with this, I don’t have _time_ to hand-hold this _child_ through the basics of _his_ _own job.”_

“I’m not that much younger than you,” Changkyun says blithely. “But you can hold my hand if you want anyway.”

Minhyuk is laughing, but Kihyun is seeing red, and doesn’t bother suppressing a growl of frustration as he stalks away. He can hear Minhyuk’s kind tone as he re-explains the gist of Changkyun’s job to him — second time this week, and it’s only Wednesday — and gives him some sort of inane, pointless assignment to keep him out of everyone else’s hair. It’s a good strategy, as far as Changkyun-neutralizing goes, but why the fuck do they have to neutralize their own receptionist? He’s meant to be taking calls, directing them on jobs, managing their brand, but instead, Minhyuk is having him “draw me a diagram of where _you_ think ghosts go when we can’t see them.” It’s ridiculous. It’s a waste of time and money. Kihyun has gone to the other side of the room to see what Hyungwon is tinkering with in the lab, since he’s got his welding goggles on, which is always a sign of something interesting, but then the phone rings again and Kihyun’s head whips over to see whether once, just once, Changkyun will be able to do his fucking job.

“Hello, thank you for contacting the P.P.P.P.,” Changkyun says, syllable by syllable, looking up at Minhyuk, who gives him an enthusiastic smile and two thumbs-up. “How may I direct your— oh! Oh, yes— yes, of course. Uh-huh.” He tucks the phone between his ear and shoulder, grabbing a chewed-up pen from the I ❤️ NY mug on his desk and a pad of paper to jot down what the caller is saying. “Mhm, go on? I see. I _see._ How tall would you say— oh, interesting. And can it, like, grab— ooh. Good for you. No, no, of course not. Well, a little. Yes, we’ll be right on that, thank you!” He finishes scribbling whatever he was scribbling on his notepad and hangs up the phone, and Kihyun, Minhyuk, and Hyungwon, wait with bated breath, but of course all Changkyun does is sigh and say, “Anyway, I’ll get that diagram to you pronto, boss!”

“Changkyun,” Minhyuk says, still trying to be patient but for the first time sounding a little despairing himself. He grabs for the notepad, and Changkyun makes a sad noise but lets him take it: Minhyuk gapes at the notepad and turns it to show Kihyun that Changkyun had just drawn a cartoon ghost with the caption _P.P.P.P. to the rescue!_ “Who was on the phone? Do we have a case?”

“Hm? Oh, right! Yes!” Changkyun says, and Hyungwon starts pulling off his goggles; Kihyun crosses the room yet again to open their equipment locker and taking things out practically at random, since there’s no way Changkyun managed to get any kind of usable information out of the caller. “There’s a spirit at a, um… construction site, I think she said? Pretty close to here, actually, by the old pier. It sounded like a pretty dangerous situation, maybe you should sit this one out.”

“Thanks a lot, Changkyun,” Minhyuk says and leaps into action.

Changkyun, missing the irony completely, chirps, “No problem whatsoever! I’m always so happy to help,” in all sincerity.

At this point, all Kihyun can do is laugh, so he doesn’t cry or snap his own neck. He grabs their quantum traps, proton packs, and jumpsuits, tossing Minhyuk and Hyungwon their respective gear when they run up to collect it. Then it’s a mad dash to get suited up and ready to go, all three of them talking rapidly about sticking to their pre-agreed-upon plan, sticking together, catching this thing, making it back in one piece. Minhyuk spearheads the charge, Kihyun and Hyungwon flanking him: Hyungwon oversees the actual weaponry, Kihyun is tasked with the restraint and capture, and Minhyuk functions as initial civilian control, then spirit engagement to keep the thing distracted until Kihyun and Hyungwon can lock it down. If need be, all three of them will go in for a physical fight, but those never end without a hospital visit, so that would ideally be avoided. It’s all fine and dandy for Changkyun — and Kihyun doesn’t have time for an imperious scoff but he treats himself to one anyway — to sit at his cushy desk job and wear his little three-piece suits and fake glasses and ghost-themed cufflinks and say _maybe you should sit this one out,_ but there are lives at stake. They’re sitting atop a veritable warehouse of trapped spirits; if not for the three of them, those spirits would still be out there in the mortal world, wreaking havoc and killing people in the process. They have a job to do — a duty to fulfill. Of course Changkyun and his entirely empty head could never understand, and Kihyun thinks maybe he should give up trying.

“Changkyun, hon, since we’re leaving, you can go home early,” Minhyuk half-shouts, shoving Hyungwon out of his way to get his gloves and ionic catalyzer. Hyungwon wobbles slightly, but doesn’t fall, busy grabbing various experimental micro-weapons from his workstation.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” Changkyun disagrees with a little smile. “I’m on the clock until six, you know! Plus, what if you need something?”

“What could we _possibly_ need from you,” Kihyun mutters, hopping on one foot as he tries to pull on his boots. “We ready? Let’s go.”

“I think so— Changkyun, checklist?” Hyungwon says as he grabs the car keys and throws them to Kihyun.

“Checklist?… Oh, right, the checklist! Just a moment,” Changkyun hums. He starts rifling through the various papers on his desk while Kihyun, Minhyuk, and Hyungwon jog up to his desk, all three of them practically bouncing with impatience, but of course Changkyun is taking his sweet time, spinning a little from side to side in his chair and biting absently at his pink lower lip as he shuffles the papers around. “Hm. I can’t seem to find it, guys. You sure you gave it back?”

“Fuck it,” Kihyun snaps. “Proton packs, check. Protective gear’s in the car, check. Traps, check. Minhyuk, radios?”

“Check!”

“Hyungwon, wire cutters?”

“Check.”

“Then we’re good,” Kihyun says. “Let’s _go,_ before it’s too late.” He spares one last disdainful glance for Changkyun as he smooths down his jumpsuit. It’s fucking _offensive_ at this point that on top of worrying about whether they’re going to come back from this case alive, _they_ have to worry about their own goddamn checklist. What is the point of him? Why do they even still keep him around? It makes Kihyun so mad.

“Good luck out there,” Changkyun smiles. They were all about to rush out the door and down the stairs to the car parked outside, but they halt and turn to see him; he’s bright and encouraging as always, his dimples carved deep into his youthful cheeks and his eyes sparkling behind his flimsy glasses. “Bring back a good one. You all look so handsome.”

“Oh, yeah?” Minhyuk says, striking a pose. “Who looks the handsomest?”

Changkyun takes a moment to consider it, biting at the end of his pen. “Mr. Yoo, of course,” he says confidently, and his eyes go even sparklier.

“Yeah,” Hyungwon says under his breath. “ _That’s_ why we keep him around.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Kihyun huffs and storms out, and Minhyuk and Hyungwon follow him a second later.

In the car, Kihyun driving and Minhyuk and Hyungwon entangled in the back, they go over the plan again, just to be safe. “Based on what I could hear from Changkyun’s side of the conversation,” Minhyuk says, nuzzling at Hyungwon’s neck, “it sounded like a class-A corporeal apparition, supra-human, with advanced manipulative abilities.”

“What gives you that idea?” Kihyun snorts. “You think he’s reliable? It could either be Casper the friendly ghost, or Godzilla.”

“If it were Godzilla, Changkyun would _definitely_ tell us,” Minhyuk points out, and clambers into Hyungwon’s lap.

Kihyun makes a disgusted noise and adjusts the rearview mirror so he doesn’t have to see them. Why does the prospect of potentially losing limbs to a maleficent undead entity always make those two so horny? One of these days, he’ll have enough once and for all of third-wheeling and will leave them to their own sick devices. However, today is not that day, and he just tries not to listen to the kissing and moaning noises from the back while also trying to find the construction site Changkyun was talking about. He couldn’t have been more specific? This part of town is _always_ under construction — in the 19th century, it was the heart of the city, all the inns and bordellos and workhouses based along the water’s edge, but as time has gone by, those buildings have fallen into disrepair, and most have been torn down to be replaced with high-rises. There are also a lot of ley lines running through the whole area, and so they get a lot of calls concerning apparitions around here, which is also fortunate because it’s within running distance of their headquarters. However, _usually,_ people tell them a _specific address,_ not just “a construction site near the old pier.” Seriously, the kid’s been working for them for seven fucking months, and he _still_ doesn’t know what questions to ask when they get a call? Kihyun, unbeknownst to him, has been clutching the steering wheel and glowering, barely even bothering to scan their surroundings for the prospective site of a haunting, but then he nearly hits a pedestrian head-on and slams on the brakes.

“Hey!” Minhyuk complains from the back seat as the car screeches to a halt and he’s almost thrown up to the front seat — Hyungwon’s holding onto him, though, so he stays put.

“I think this is it,” Kihyun says, squinting through the windshield. People are running, and he can hear screams and wailing. It seems they’re all running away from one specific direction, and when he follows the line back to its origin, he sees a half-demolished building surrounded by scaffolding; the upper windows are illuminated with a sickly-green light. Kihyun has done this a thousand times by now, but he still can’t suppress the shudder that tears through him when he sees it.

From the back, Minhyuk whoops, and he leaps out of Hyungwon’s lap so they can burst out of the car. Kihyun scrambles to follow, and Hyungwon hauls the rest of the gear from the trunk seconds before Kihyun locks the car — he’s stronger than he looks, but it still looks pretty funny, his waifish frame bowing under the load of the additional neutron cannons, oxygen tanks, and ultraviolet floodlights. They set off, the three of them, sprinting down the middle of the street since it’s stand-still traffic anyway, upstream of the panicked civilians. “Get away from here,” Minhyuk is yelling. “Get inside, we’ve got it covered, don’t be a hero, that’s our job.”

“Thank you,” says a tearful woman, running past them, and Kihyun’s eyes are fixed on the building so he can’t look her in the face, but he feels a momentary flash of pride anyway. They’re helping people. That’s what’s important. Not how infuriating their empty-headed eye-candy receptionist is. They’re here to help, to protect, and that’s what they’re going to do.

“Hyungwon,” Minhyuk shouts. They’ve almost reached the house, now, and Kihyun can see that the upstairs windows are open and spewing out various detritus. “Blast it.”

Hyungwon pulls down a weapon from his back, braces himself back on one foot, ready aim fire; a sonic _boom,_ too low to be audible but powerful enough to shake Kihyun’s bones and teeth, tears through the air, and all the remaining windows of the house shatter. The blast acts as a stun gun for post-existent entities, and while it’s not enough to knock them out for good, it’ll give the three of them enough time to get in, and, hopefully, they’ll have the chance to sneak up on this particular spirit and trap it with minimal damage. Hyungwon uses the back of the blaster as a battering ram on the fragile door of the building, and it crumbles out of the way immediately. Kihyun’s pulse is thrumming with adrenaline, he’s laser-focused on the work ahead of them, and as agreed, Minhyuk goes in first, crying “If anyone’s in here, get out while you can, get out now,” at the top of his lungs in his carnival-barker voice. But there’s no one; despite this technically being a construction site, it would seem that nobody has bothered to visit this building in quite a while.

Kihyun steps in after Minhyuk, then Hyungwon at his heels. Proton packs at the ready, aimed ahead of them defensively. But the house is quiet and still, and even the noise of the chaos unfolding on the street is muffled. “Weird vibe in here,” Kihyun comments, and Minhyuk and Hyungwon agree. The air feels nearly thick, humid as though in summer, and Kihyun idly considers asking Hyungwon if he thinks they should each take hits of oxygen before they continue their advance. But so far he’s breathing fine, and Hyungwon doesn’t seem concerned, so Kihyun uses him as a litmus test and doesn’t worry, doesn’t think, just follows Minhyuk with all guns ready to blaze.

“I think I know where we are,” Hyungwon says in a throaty stage-whisper. “I’ve read about this house. It’s super haunted.”

Minhyuk cackles a laugh, gesturing vaguely to their surroundings, the utterly destroyed dusty room. “Ya think? I love how observant you are, babe.”

“Obviously it’s super haunted, but I mean, it’s a specific kind of haunting,” Hyungwon says. “This used to be a brothel. The biggest one in the city.”

“Think we’ll see some sexy ghosts?” Minhyuk says, waggling his eyebrows at Kihyun, and Kihyun doesn’t even bother dignifying that with a response, on high-alert for any possible noise, treading lightly over the creaky floorboards and keeping his weapons aimed.

“Sexy, and old,” Hyungwon adds. “You know whenever a new town springs up, the whorehouses are some of the first-built establishments. We probably haven’t ever met a spirit this old before. This would be a great add to our collection.”

“So less talking, more collecting, then,” Kihyun says, snippier than he’d intended, but they take the hint after exchanging looks, and the three of them continue making their way into the house, all knowing that time is ticking down, and that the hold the stun blast had placed on the spirit upstairs won’t last forever.

But so far, it seems pretty straightforward, the strange vibe notwithstanding. They find the stairs and Hyungwon throws a loose brick up half the flight to test their strength, and the wood holds; it’s safe. So Minhyuk goes first, Hyungwon right behind him, and Kihyun does one final visual sweep of the area surrounding the stairs before bringing up the rear, but as soon as he’s halfway up, the air is split by a loud, unearthly wailing that makes Kihyun’s hair stand on end, and they all stop dead in their tracks.

“That’s coming from downstairs,” Kihyun says, once the echo fades. “Shit, there must be more than one. Let’s go handle that one before the—”

He hasn’t finished his sentence when the whole entire second floor of the house rattles, then roars, the spirit breaking free of its stupor and flying into a rage. “Fuck,” Minhyuk, usually laughing, says grimly. “We’re going to have to split up, we can’t do two at once.”

“You don’t think you could lure the downstairs one out?” Hyungwon says.

Minhyuk opens his mouth to answer, but the upstairs ghost begins to shriek and there is the sound of something heavy crashing, and he shakes his head. “No, not at this point. Kihyun—”

“On it,” Kihyun says. They’ve split up on the job before; sometimes it’s the only option, but it’s certainly never ideal. If sound is anything to go by, though, the ghost downstairs isn’t as big and bad as the one up above, so he figures he’ll have it handled in a couple minutes and will be able to join Minhyuk and Hyungwon in wrangling the other. He nods to them, and they all turn to go, Minhyuk and Hyungwon taking the stairs two by two to the second floor, Kihyun leaping down from whence they’d come, then running in the direction the wail had been emanating from.

Sure enough, there’s a basement. What a nuisance. Kihyun can see light spilling out from underneath the door, and he tests the ornate knob and finds it loose, so he tears it out of the worm-eaten wood, kicks the door down, and, on the highest of alerts, creeps down the stairs into the basement, following the light of the ghost.

If the vibe had been weird in the main part of the brothel, it’s even stranger down here. What makes it odder is how untouched the basement is — a snapshot in time, hardly any sign that time has passed since the 19th century at all. Were it not for the thick layer of dust blanketing the furniture, it would look like a movie set. But there’s something strange about the dust, and upon closer inspection, Kihyun realizes that _that_ is the source of the light, not any one spirit. The dust itself is glowing, softly but surely, stars in the night sky, bioluminescent plankton, and the particles swirling through the air twinkle at him almost invitingly. It would be beautiful if he didn’t know how dangerous the pretty ghosts could be. But where is the actual ghost? He heard it, he knows it’s here. Minhyuk is always the one who can get them to come out if they’re feeling shy, but he’s upstairs — Kihyun can hear, very dimly, banging and clanging and electricity crackling — and Kihyun is down here all alone, so he takes in a deep breath and tries to think of what Minhyuk would do in this situation.

Well, typically, Minhyuk just annoys the ghosts so severely that they come out just to get him to shut up, so Kihyun figures that’s what he’ll try. “I like your room,” he says, kicking over a small round table — dust puffs up, making a little cloud in the air that glitters, hanging heavy for a moment before dissipating. “Did your grandmother decorate it for you?”

No response. Kihyun squints around the room, which seems to be getting brighter by the second. This must have been an office of some kind, or a permanent residence: it makes no sense for a room with a more _productive_ use to be tucked away in the basement. He scans around himself again, searching for anything he can use to continue annoying the ghost, and at the very back of the room, he spots a desk, and underneath it, a nondescript black box with so much dust clinging to it that he can barely look directly at it. “There we go,” he says under his breath, and starts to advance. “Was this your office? Your storeroom? No wonder it’s so dusty — business must have been _terrible._ If I crack open that safe, it’ll be empty, won’t it? This place is in one sorry state, but I bet it’s still a sight prettier than it was when _you_ were in charge. Pathetic.”

The dust seems to quiver. Heartened, Kihyun steps bolder, his eyes and particle thrower aimed at the safe under the desk. “What, am I right?” he challenges. “If I’m wrong, if this place was where the cream of the crop came to get their crops creamed, by all means, prove it to me, I’d _love_ to know all about it. But so far, all I see is a miserable little shack forgotten by time, never worth remembering in the first place. We’re gonna burn it to the ground, you know, and forget all about it ourselves, and where’s that going to leave _you?”_

Finally — not a wail this time, nor a ghostly moan, but a heavy sob. Maybe Kihyun is just bullying the ghost rather than annoying it, but he’s getting impatient, and as long as it gets results, it’s all fair game. “Yeah, you don’t like that, do you?” Kihyun taunts, turning around just to make sure the ghost isn’t sneaking up on him. “I gotta tell you, I’ve never seen a less sexy brothel. This place is truly disgusting. Why did anyone come here? _Did_ anyone come here? I think coming here is making _me_ never want to have sex ever again. Let me take a look in this safe and confirm my suspicions—”

But just as he reaches out to push the desk aside, that sob rends the air once more, the dust around him whirls upwards, a twister of sparks coalescing in the middle, and he staggers back a couple of involuntary steps as the ghost becomes corporeal. A shining woman in a frilled dress, her face tear-streaked, her ample bosom spilling out over the top of her corset, and she reaches out for Kihyun with both hands and screams, _“You’re wrong!”_

Aim, fire. He doesn’t have time to get back and the charge from the proton pack hits her _hard,_ harder than intended, punching her into a thousand streaks of light, all of which splash directly back onto Kihyun and burn wherever they touch skin. He gasps, struggling to breathe through the onslaught, but keeps his weapon aimed, the stream of electricity keeping the ghost suspended in mid-air, twisted in unearthly agony, but as he throws his quantum trap to the floor and it wrenches open to suck her in, he can hear that she’s not crying or begging or wailing — she’s _laughing._

Then, just like that, she’s gone. Kihyun’s body is shaking and he lowers the particle wand, stumbling where he stands. They’re supposed to stay further away from the ghosts when they light them up, but it had all happened so fast, he just hadn’t had the chance to move, and no way in hell was he letting her escape. He’s getting dizzy from the exertion, from the reverse of polarity through the ray of the proton pack into his own body, and he feels like he’s the one that’s been electrified — he’s twitching, unable to breathe in fully, he can’t stand still. He sways, but braces himself before he can fall. “Fuck,” he mumbles, looking down at himself. He can see the traces from where she had exploded onto him, glistening liquid streaking his clothes but evaporating as he watches. That’s never happened before, and he doesn’t know what it means; hopefully, upstairs, Minhyuk and Hyungwon are having better luck. He’ll log it in the so-called creature catalog when they get back to HQ, and then he’ll take a nice, hot shower, and that’ll be the end of it.

Speaking of Minhyuk and Hyungwon, they might need help — he needs to go to them. He bends down to collect the trap and nearly topples over, his balance totally shot. “Fuck,” he says again, but his tongue feels heavy, his words slow to spill past his lips. Now that the ghost is gone, the room is getting darker as the dust loses its light, or is that Kihyun’s vision beginning to fade? What’s happening to him? This could be bad, this could be really bad. He hooks his shaking fingers through the casing of the quantum trap and begins to drag it to the exit, but that electric buzz through his system is stronger than ever before, and he moans in pain, falling to his knees at the base of the stairs, unable to take a single step further.

The ghost’s laughter is still ringing in his ears as he collapses to the floor, and then all he knows is blackness.

He comes to in a doorway. Their doorway, in fact. The doorway to the headquarters of the Paranormal Phenomena Protection Project. His whole body is throbbing, and he’s sore from head to toe, his tongue lead-cotton in his mouth. How did he get here? How long was he out for? Where are the others? He takes a staggering step forward, nearly falls, pushes his hand against the wall and tries again, but his head is spinning, and suddenly, he’s so feverish that he has to pant for air. Heat sears through him, crackling under his skin, and leaves him trembling, sweating. He grits his teeth against another surge of fever, determined at least to make it inside HQ — then he can call for help, or maybe Minhyuk and Hyungwon will be there already, and they’ll be able to help him.

“Hello?” says a voice. Neither Minhyuk, nor Hyungwon. “Who’s there?”

It hits Kihyun who it is and he groans, his knees nearly buckling under his own weight. Not this, please, anything but this. Just in case he’s having auditory hallucinations, he braves on, leaning heavily on the wall as he hobbles further into HQ. His head is aching and he can’t look at the windows directly, but the office is dimly lit, save for one bright light right near the entrance that makes Kihyun hiss and cover his eyes. That light — he knows it, and it’s difficult to recollect where he knows it from, but then that same voice speaks again— “Mr. Yoo?”— and Kihyun gets hit with another powerful wave of hot, searing electricity, and he doubles over.

“Changkyun,” he croaks, sounding distant in his own ears, speaking as if from miles away. “Not now.”

“Mr. Yoo,” Changkyun says again, audibly concerned. “Kihyun? What’s going on? Are you okay? Where’s Minhyuk and Hyungwon?”

“I don’t— I can’t—” Kihyun can barely think, let alone speak, and he manages to open his eyes enough to see that the light is coming from Changkyun’s desk lamp, and that Changkyun is still there, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his wavy hair adorably mussed. He’s seated behind his desk, but as Kihyun gasps for breath, the hand that’s not propping himself up on the wall moving to clutch at his own stomach and see if he’s bleeding, he begins to rise, and Kihyun’s panic momentarily supersedes the heat stabbing through him. _“Don’t!”_

“What’s wrong?” Changkyun frowns. He’s fully up out of his chair now, and he steps out from behind the desk to approach Kihyun slowly, like he would a wounded animal in a trap. “You seem hurt. What happened with the ghost?”

“Changkyun,” Kihyun repeats, his body once again beginning to shake. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him — he feels unhinged, like a different person, like he’s _possessed,_ and if he’s possessed, then that is very, _very_ bad news for the both of them. Kihyun theoretically knows what to do in case of a possession, but not one that he’s a current victim of, and God knows Changkyun has no idea. It’s in his training manual, but Kihyun is certain that he hasn’t read it. Useless, ditzy Changkyun, in his snappy three-piece suits, a different one for each day of the week, and his bright smiles and boyish charm. The corner of the office devoted just to his drawings and motivational Post-It notes with scribbly slogans like “bust those ghosts” and “you can boo it.” The way he spins around in his desk chair, staring dreamily off into space thinking about various fuckable monsters. Pressing random buttons on the phone because he doesn’t know how to work the damn thing, twirling the cord around his finger, chewing on pens to satisfy his obvious oral fixation. Always trying to invite himself along on cases, even though he screams at the sight of a bug and is, by his own admission, scared of the dark. Hilariously underqualified, but the only person who’d applied for the job, but they would have hired him out of a pool of hundreds, because — and _now_ Kihyun remembers why they hired him, why they keep him around, even though he actively costs them so much precious energy. Changkyun isn’t just an eager monsterfucking bimbo with a communications degree; he’s also sweet, kind, and loyal to a fault, and they’ve all known, from the moment Minhyuk shook his hand and said _you’re hired,_ that it was going to either save their lives or get him killed someday.

It seems that day has come. Kihyun, hunched over by the wall, holds his hand out away from himself to keep Changkyun _back,_ to keep him from coming close, because if he’s possessed then he could hurt Changkyun, he could really hurt him, and he doesn’t know what to do. Even still, he’s hotter than ever, his rapid breaths practically steaming out of him as he tries frantically to regain control of his own faculties.

“Kihyun,” Changkyun murmurs, stubbornly approaching. “Where does it hurt? Show me. What can I do to help you? Let me help you. Let me—”

He reaches out for Kihyun, and Kihyun moves before he even knows he’s doing it, grabbing him roughly by the forearm and whirling him around to shove him up against the wall. Changkyun squeaks in shock, clinging to him, and quivers like a rabbit in the jaws of a wolf when Kihyun crowds in against him. He can’t move an inch, trapped and pinned, as Kihyun’s hands curl tightly in the front of his stupid fancy dress shirt, but he’s not really struggling, just staring down at Kihyun with wide eyes.

“Kihyun,” he whispers. “What— what are you doing?”

Fuck, what _is_ Kihyun doing? Whatever it is, he can’t stop. He’s already pressed almost fully to Changkyun, but he presses in even closer, ducking his head down to drag his nose up along the line of Changkyun’s throat, and _oh,_ he smells good, warm-blooded and alive, _needy._ Kihyun’s body aches like he’s been run over by a train, but _this_ feels good, this simple human closeness, and a low, involuntary noise not unlike a growl rumbles out of him as he pushes his body against Changkyun’s. “You should have stayed away,” he murmurs, his lips parting to scrape his teeth, just for a moment, over the fine line of Changkyun’s jaw. “Now I’ll never let you go.”

“ _What?”_ Changkyun chokes out.

Kihyun bites his earlobe, sucks on it, his hands releasing their tight fistfuls of his shirt and waistcoat to drag down, greedy for his skin. His fever’s even worse, now — being this close to Changkyun is making him even more delirious, and all he can think about is tearing Changkyun out of his trim little suit, throwing him over his desk, and fucking him until he’s sobbing. It’s not like he hasn’t thought about it before; in fact, he thinks about it every day, sometimes more than once, if Changkyun is being particularly aggravating, but it's never felt _this_ urgent. He grinds his hips forward — _fuck,_ if being close had been enough to feel good, that feels _amazing,_ and he repeats the motion, moaning into the warm skin underneath Changkyun’s ear, dampened by Kihyun’s wet breathing. He feels an answering touch — Changkyun’s hands, hesitant, coming up to hold onto his shoulders. Something dark curls tight and low in Kihyun’s abdomen, and he purrs, his tongue sliding out to lick Changkyun’s neck, and Changkyun whimpers, a small, animal sound, miles away from the typical low baritone of his voice. It’s so jarring to hear him make a noise like that that it snaps Kihyun back to consciousness, even if for a moment, and he pushes _hard_ at Changkyun’s chest to pin him against the wall while he tears himself away, though every molecule in him cries out in protest.

“I think the ghost did something to me,” Kihyun pants wildly, knowing he doesn’t have much time left before the fever takes him again. “Changkyun, please, get away from me, I don’t want to hurt you.”

Changkyun’s cheeks are flushed bright pink and behind his glasses, his eyes are huge and dark. “But aren’t you in pain?” he asks. “I told you, I want to help you, that’s all I’ve ever wanted. Won’t you let me help?”

He reaches for Kihyun, who recoils as if burned, but Changkyun’s hands are very gentle as he draws Kihyun back in. His touch is _exquisite,_ soothing even as it aggravates Kihyun’s already-inflamed senses, and Kihyun shudders, fighting hard to keep from leaning back in to resume his previous position — this isn’t fair to Changkyun, he probably doesn’t want this, neither of them knows what’s going on — but then Changkyun slides one hand down over the front of Kihyun’s jumpsuit to cup his clothed dick, and Kihyun’s body flares to life again and he closes the distance between them, a hand flashing up behind Changkyun’s neck to pull him in for a crushing, bruising kiss.

Changkyun moans into his mouth, and his fingers tighten on Kihyun’s cock. When did Kihyun have time to get so hard? He grinds against Changkyun’s hold and pushes his tongue into his mouth, kissing him hungry and wet. Changkyun is saying something — Kihyun can barely hear him, there’s electricity and fire roaring in his ears, and when he fucks into his palm again, his thigh shoves between Changkyun’s and he can feel that, underneath his finely-woven wool suit, Changkyun is hard, too. “I’m yours,” Changkyun is moaning. “Please take me, I’m yours.”

Kihyun, imbued with supernatural strength, hoists Changkyun into the air and Changkyun jumps to help him, eagerly throwing his legs around Kihyun’s waist and his arms around his neck. They’re still kissing as Kihyun blindly carries him to the desk, but Changkyun breaks away, gasping, a second before Kihyun throws him onto the surface, his hands flying out behind him to clear some space. But then Kihyun’s atop him, grinding their hips harshly together, and Changkyun is so warm, so pliant, so soft to the touch, and Kihyun kisses at his neck again, biting, sucking, wanting to take him, claim him, consume him. Changkyun trembles, spreading his legs so easily for him, and Kihyun grabs at his shirt once again, but this time not to hold him still — to rip it open.

He hears buttons pop and clatter to the floor, and Changkyun even breathes out a dismayed noise, but Kihyun can’t think about that, not with so much of Changkyun’s beautiful skin on display. He puts his palms on him, drags up and down to feel him, and pays no mind when his nails catch on Changkyun’s sensitive nipples and make him buck and quiver underneath him. The fever is at its worst thus far — Kihyun really feels like if he doesn’t get his dick inside Changkyun right now, he might actually drop dead. He’s never needed anything so badly in his life. Changkyun is still wearing his tie, and Kihyun tears that off, too, then surges back down to kiss him again, hungry for his tongue.

Changkyun’s hands come up, and he fumbles for the zipper underneath Kihyun’s throat. He doesn’t seem to mind that Kihyun is all grimy from the decrepit house, nor that Kihyun is pawing at him and biting savage marks into the side of his neck. He just yanks the zipper down, baring Kihyun’s chest, then abdomen, then heavy, leaking cock, and the way he moans, it’s almost like _he’s_ the one currently suffering from some kind of ghostly affliction that means he has to fuck or die. Kihyun is past the point of incoherence, pinning Changkyun down so he has something to thrust against, because the material of Changkyun’s suit feels amazing, Changkyun’s hands feel amazing, Changkyun feels amazing. Changkyun moans _please,_ grabs Kihyun’s hips and hauls him flush against his body so Kihyun can really get some traction, and Kihyun sinks his teeth into Changkyun’s shoulder and comes, spilling out his fever over Changkyun’s bare stomach, his suit trousers, and leaving Changkyun a mess.

They both wait, panting, to see if that had done the trick. Changkyun squirms a little, so hard he’s visibly twitching in his trousers, and Kihyun rolls his hips slightly to chase sensation and finds that _no,_ he’s very much not done — if anything, he only wants it _more._ He sits back, his chest heaving with his breath, and tugs at the clasp of Changkyun’s trousers. When it doesn’t give right away, he snarls in frustration and tears the fly open instead, which then makes it easier to pull apart the rest and drag the trousers down, and Changkyun shivers gratefully as his cock springs free. “Look,” Changkyun says, giggling just a little bit. “We’re both commando, we match.”

Kihyun doesn’t have time to _giggle_ right now. He needs to be inside him, splitting him open. Instinctively knowing what to do, he sticks two fingers into his own mouth, and when he pulls them back out, they’re wet and viscous, not normal human spit but something else, slicker, less quick to evaporate. It seems the ghost was kind enough to make him the perfect fuck-machine. He spits into his palm for good measure, and Changkyun is positively quivering on the table, emitting that same high, needy animal whimper again, but now that Kihyun knows he’s not in any kind of pain, it’s not enough to stop him. He puts his hand between Changkyun’s legs, pushes his fingers against his hole without much ceremony, and Changkyun thrashes and accidentally knocks his much-maligned desk lamp to the floor, where it shatters.

Now _that_ brings Kihyun to his senses, just for a second, and he can’t talk, doesn’t want to waste this precious time, so he hits Changkyun’s thigh to get his attention and looks at him searchingly when Changkyun, his glasses knocked askew and his hair even wilder than before, meets his unsteady gaze. “So good,” Changkyun moans, working his hips down to try and coax Kihyun’s fingers deeper into him. “This is _so_ awesome.”

Is awesome the word? As long as he’s happy, Kihyun supposes, but then Changkyun clenches around his fingers and sentience is gone, all that’s left is _need,_ and he leans down to bite and kiss his chest as he finger-fucks him, but not with the goal of pleasure or teasing — purely utilitarian, preparing him to take Kihyun’s dick, and the not-spit he’d used to ease his way seems to increase in volume the more he thrusts his fingers in and out. He wants to be _in_ him, he can hear, muffled, that he’s whining, too, and Changkyun tries to help him by speeding up the process, reaching down to untangle himself from what’s left of his trousers.

But he’s not going quick enough. Kihyun pulls his fingers out — Changkyun yelps sadly — and tears the trousers in half, and then it’s far easier for Changkyun to kick them off and wrap his thighs around Kihyun’s waist. Maybe he’s not ready — maybe Kihyun needs to finger him more — but Kihyun can’t, there’s no time, and he grabs at his dick, strokes himself a few times to get it nice and slick. Is it another fevered hallucination, or does his dick feel bigger than usual, unnaturally harder, too? But analysis is out of the question, what with Changkyun writhing under him, rubbing the rim of his hole against the head of Kihyun’s dick, and that same dark something that had wound up tight in Kihyun’s body earlier roars its approval as he snaps his hips forward, and fills him.

“Oh,” Changkyun groans, his eyelashes fluttering. His arms, previously holding Kihyun’s waist, fall uselessly to his sides, then stretch up above his head as his back arches high off the desk. His tiny candy-pink mouth has fallen open, and Kihyun watches the bend of his tongue in his mouth when Kihyun begins to fuck him, as hard and fast as he needs. Each thrust makes the desk shake, sends Changkyun bouncing up the surface, his high-pitched moans punched out of him, and as Kihyun speeds up, Changkyun begins to touch himself, too, but not his cock, flushed achingly red and wet against his stomach though it is; he teases over his body, one hand going down his chest, the other staying near his own face so he can slip a finger into his own mouth and moan around it.

Oral fixation. Kihyun sees him bite on his fingertip — he sees the flash of his white teeth. Oh, how Kihyun wishes he could fuck his mouth at the same time — an absurd, impossible craving, but so strong it makes his head spin. Changkyun is moaning something unbelievable, so loud it’s doubtless audible for blocks around, and the noises are making Kihyun _melt,_ hot and volatile down to his very core, and he seizes the tie he’d torn off Changkyun’s neck earlier, draws it horizontal between his hands, and puts it up to Changkyun’s mouth: wordless, _bite._

Changkyun’s eyes, starry and dazed, roll back slightly in his head, and he does as Kihyun instructs, biting down on the fabric. It only barely helps the noise level; he’s still keening and moaning and gasping, and it worsens when Kihyun stays close after all, returning to his abuses of his neck. He tastes even better like this, flushed and fucked. Kihyun is pounding into him by now, and he means to grab Changkyun by his sharp hipbone to hold him steadier for the fucking, but he gets lost in the middle and instead, gives Changkyun’s cock a light smack. Changkyun whines desperately around the tie in his mouth, arching harder off the desk, his dick blurting even more wet pre-come over his stomach, but then Kihyun succeeds in finding his hips and holding him still, and then all either of them can do is moan as Kihyun fucks him.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Changkyun gets out between gasps and moans and whines and whimpers — when had he managed to remove the tie? It seems his enthusiastic moaning had led to it simply falling from his lips, and he’d spit it out the rest of the way. “Wanted it so _bad_ from you, I think about it all the time— fuck, _fuck,_ Kihyun, right there! That’s so good, _ah!_ Can’t believe you want me— want me, too. Please— fuck me as much as you need, I know I’m _horrible_ at my job but I’m good at this, can I be good at this for you? Please?”

Kihyun pulls out of him — Changkyun makes a noise like he’s been shot — and pulls back, but he doesn’t go far, just manhandles Changkyun to flip him over onto his front. In Kihyun’s new enhanced state, Changkyun is movable like a doll, but with what he’s saying, Kihyun doubts he’d be too obstreperous even otherwise. Now Kihyun can ground himself on the floor, hold Changkyun with his palms braced tightly against the small of his back, and Changkyun sobs out his next breath, his fingers scrabbling uselessly for purchase on the smooth surface of the desk. Kihyun’s grip is digging into him hard enough to bruise. _Yes,_ some conscious sliver of Kihyun thinks dimly in the back of his mind, _yes, this was always going to be the best way to teach him a lesson — he didn’t need more training, he just needed a thorough fuck._ Changkyun’s noises have progressed from whimpers to muffled mewls against the desk, and Kihyun had thought this would break the fever, maybe, finally, but it’s not at all — the more he gets, the more he needs. Fuck, they might be here all night, but Changkyun is loving it, turning his head to the side to gasp for air, and Kihyun can see that his pretty lashes, normally used for batting guilelessly up at whoever wants him to make a copy or send an email, are clumped together wetly, and it makes him even prettier.

Without even intending to or noticing that he was close, Kihyun comes again, this time shooting off deep inside Changkyun. Changkyun must feel him go rigid, or the way his cock is pulsing, because his noises are worse than ever, panted breathless encouragements and begging. The relief that accompanies the orgasm is like a single sip of water at noon in the Sahara, and Kihyun bends down over him, mouths the back of his neck, and Changkyun shivers when he understands his meaning. “Turn me over again,” he murmurs, sounding distant, dreamy. “Want to see you. Please.”

Kihyun isn’t so happy about being told what to do, but if he thinks of it as a request, not a command, he finds it easier to bear. He pulls out, leaving Changkyun sticky, and guides him onto his back once more, drinking in the sight in front of him; Changkyun absolutely wrecked in the tatters of his shirt, his glasses twisted to the side, his eyes shining with unshed tears of pleasure, and, most interestingly, wet, white streaks on his stomach and on the desk. Kihyun still finds it difficult to speak, so he quirks up his eyebrows, and Changkyun blushes an even brighter red and bites his lip modestly.

“Sorry,” he says, visibly not sorry in the slightest. “Felt too good, I couldn’t help it.”

Kihyun, frankly, couldn’t care less, he just needs to get inside him again. Changkyun’s legs fall open easily with Kihyun’s hands pushing them down, and the slide back into him is even easier. And Changkyun’s ensuing moan is so sweet, so shaky, and Kihyun leans in, nuzzles his cheek against Changkyun’s for a moment, then takes one arm of his glasses between his teeth, clamps down, and flings them carelessly to the side. God, he hates those fucking things, they make him want to do — well, this, actually. The taste of metal in his mouth, he kisses Changkyun again, tongue to tongue, and Changkyun is trying to smile if the tension of his lips is anything to go by, but he keeps moaning and can’t do it. Kihyun is no longer fucking him at a breakneck pace; he’s taking his time, dragging his hips, rolling in slow to feel him on every inch of his cock, so much wetter with Kihyun’s come slicking him from within. Changkyun exhales falteringly, his arms looping around Kihyun’s shoulders and his fingers sinking into Kihyun’s hair, and Kihyun makes a low noise to encourage the touches, then sucks Changkyun’s lower lip into his mouth and doesn’t let go until Changkyun squeaks in pleasure-pain.

Now it’s like Kihyun is teasing him on purpose, slowing down to make Changkyun huff and whine, then speeding back up before he can get too bratty. It’s surprisingly lucid, as is the awareness of this lucidity, and Kihyun breaks the kiss to pant, “I think it’s working, I think this is gonna be the last one.”

Changkyun’s chin wobbles. “Okay,” he says mournfully.

He’s ridiculous. “You are ridiculous,” Kihyun tells him. It’s such a relief to be able to speak again, but he doesn’t trust himself not to say anything exceedingly strange, so he kisses Changkyun instead and the way Changkyun moans is satisfaction enough.

Soon, Changkyun’s breaths, panted through his nose, start going high and fast again, and Kihyun glances down to find that he’s stroking himself off in time with Kihyun’s thrusts. “So good,” Changkyun mumbles, all enunciation shot. “You’re so good to me, Kihyun.”

“Am I?” Kihyun says, smiling despite himself — fuck, the fever’s nearly fully lifted, this is just _him_ now, not the strange effect of the ghost controlling his system. “Everyone always thinks I’m very mean to you.”

“You are, but— _oh,_ ah— but I like it,” Changkyun sighs.

Kihyun hums in consideration, then tips his head to kiss over the marks he’d left on Changkyun’s neck — they’re pretty bad, they’ll doubtless last a while. For a foolish moment, he worries that maybe, like a vampire, some element of the ghost’s curse had transferred to Changkyun via the bite. But then again, in that case, what’s the worst that could happen? They have to fuck _more?_ Oh, no, wouldn’t that be something. He can’t help a small smile as he kisses over his neck, his throat, and finally up to his slackened mouth again, and Changkyun trembles in his arms and comes a second time, all over his own hand and stomach, and looks up at Kihyun so adoringly, so worshipfully, that Kihyun can’t help it, he follows shortly afterwards, stilling his thrusts as he comes inside him yet again.

This one, he feels, and he feels the overstimulation. How long has it been since he’s come _thrice_ in a row? Has he ever done that? He groans, his earlier soreness returning to him, and he feels overheated but not feverish, dizzy but not incoherent. He’s back.

He’s back, and he’s with Changkyun, who’s still breathing softly through the feeling, flushed a delicate pink all-over and covered in come. Kihyun suddenly feels _horrible_ for what he’s just put Changkyun through — innocent, unwitting Changkyun who didn’t sign up for _any_ of this, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time — and starts to pull out of him, but Changkyun pouts at him and locks his hands behind Kihyun’s neck. “Stay,” he frowns.

Kihyun blinks at him, his eyelids heavy. “But— it’s me,” he explains. “It worked, I’m fine now.”

“I know it’s you,” Changkyun says, tilting his head up to nudge his nose against Kihyun’s chin. “It’s been you this whole time. Whatever the ghost did just brought it out of you. Like booze, y’know? Lowers… what’s the word?”

“Inhibitions,” Kihyun answers slowly. He does as Changkyun insists and stays inside him, and even lowers himself down to rest his forehead on Changkyun’s shoulder while they both breathe. Changkyun makes a noise like a content cat, napping in the sun, and kisses the side of Kihyun’s head clumsily, and Kihyun has no idea what just happened, really, or what this means, but he knows that he survived tonight because of Changkyun and Changkyun only. The sense of gratitude is immense. “How did you know what to do?” he asks softly.

“How did I know how to _fuck?”_

“ _No,”_ Kihyun says, remembering all-too-keenly that Changkyun is essentially just a prettied-up village idiot with a job. “How did you know what I needed?”

“Oh,” Changkyun says, sounding smug. “I watched a lot of _Star Trek_ as a kid. This sort of thing happens all the time on that show. See, I’m way smarter than you think I am.”

“Uh-huh,” Kihyun says, but he can’t bring himself to be derogatory to Changkyun, not after what just happened — or possibly not ever again. He turns his head to nestle more comfortably into the crook of Changkyun’s neck, and Changkyun absently pets his hand down Kihyun’s back, and Kihyun closes his eyes and breathes.

It feels… nice. But in a normal, intimate way, not in a fever-crazed way. Of course Changkyun is right. It had been Kihyun’s true desire guiding him all along, and the ghost’s effect had only lowered his inhibitions, given him the catalyst he needed to make a move on the vacuous receptionist who had previously seemed so hideously off-limits. That must be why he ended up here after passing out; his body had brought him to HQ not only because he knew he’d be safe here, but also because he knew Changkyun would still be working. Plus, he supposes, now he won’t be third-wheeling Minhyuk and Hyungwon anymore, so—

“Fuck,” Kihyun gasps, pulling out of and away from Changkyun, who whines unhappily and reaches for him to return. “Minhyuk and Hyungwon! They—”

“You called?” Minhyuk drawls from the doorway, and Kihyun lets out a rather undignified shriek and rushes to zip up his jumpsuit, but Changkyun, blasé, lies there trussed up, on display, and very much unashamed of his obvious postcoital nudity.

“Hi, guys,” he says, waving one mildly sticky hand. “I knew you’d be okay! Did you get ‘em?”

Hyungwon, by Minhyuk’s side, lifts up the two quantum traps he’s holding. “Yep,” he says, sounding like he’s trying very hard to hold back laughter.

“By all means, don’t let us interrupt,” Minhyuk says, grinning lasciviously at Kihyun, who wishes the ghosts would break out of the traps and kill them all.

“You’re not interrupting anything,” he says and instinctively smooths his hands down his jumpsuit. They leave a slightly tacky trail, and he wants to die even worse. But while Minhyuk is grinning and winking at him, he looks at Hyungwon, and then at Minhyuk again, and then at Hyungwon again, and sees how disheveled they _both_ are: Hyungwon’s jumpsuit is unzipped halfway down his chest, Minhyuk’s lips look bruised, and they’re standing too close together, faces red. Unbelievable. Kihyun scoffs, crossing his arms, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Changkyun languorously sitting up with a little _oof_ of a noise and reaching for a discarded pant leg. “So it got to you, too,” Kihyun says.

“What did?” Minhyuk says innocently as Hyungwon, in the exact same moment, says, “I don’t want to talk about it.” They then turn to frown at each other, but Minhyuk can never stay mad at Hyungwon long, even when it’s just a joke, so he breaks immediately into giggling and clings onto Hyungwon’s arm.

Kihyun’s lip curls in disgust, but he glances back at Changkyun again, who is now mopping come up off his chest with his torn waistcoat, and sighs. “Go put the specimens in the warehouse, give a receptionist some privacy,” he huffs, making a shooing motion with his hands.

“I have a lot of questions for you when we get back,” Minhyuk threatens.

“There better be coffee when we get back, also,” Hyungwon adds before Minhyuk drags him out of the doorway and to the warehouse stairs.

Well, at least they survived. They can work out the how and why of it later, as well as log everything in the creature catalog. For now, what matters is that they’re all fine. In general, Kihyun feels a lot better than he has in a long, long time, as though all his tensions and frustrations, built up over the years, had been completely burned away by the last hour or so. The absence of rage is interesting; it nearly feels like happiness. Kihyun turns to look at Changkyun head-on, and Changkyun smiles up at him so dopey, so sweet, that it burns Kihyun’s eyes no less than the ghost in all its glory had. “Are you okay?” Kihyun asks, hesitant and a little awkward.

Changkyun nods, his familiar brilliant smile beginning to overtake his features. “Happy as a clown, boss.”

“Clam,” Kihyun corrects automatically and picks up his other pant leg, handing it to him stiffly.

“Well, _that_ just makes no sense. Why would a clam be happy? Have you ever seen a happy clam? You look like a clam sometimes, when you’re frowning,” Changkyun says. He makes his utterly insane ramblings sound so reasonable, and Kihyun is fighting hard not to smile as he returns Changkyun’s warped glasses to him, too. Changkyun frowns, biting his lip, and turns the glasses over in his hands, and he looks so genuinely bummed over a dinky pair of fake glasses that Kihyun’s stomach twists, once again, with guilt.

“I’ll replace them,” he offers, and Changkyun looks up at him, blinking those moon eyes and making Kihyun feel weak all over again. “Because, well, it’s my fault that they’re broken.”

“It’s okay, I don’t need them,” Changkyun smiles. “They’re not real, you know, they’re just glass. Oh, boss, you act like you’re so smart, but see how many things I know that you don’t?”

Kihyun’s lips purse for a moment. “Yep,” he says. Why bother? He likes that Changkyun is dumb. “Are you cold? I guess you… don’t have anything to wear, now.”

“I could be warmer, but it’s fine,” Changkyun shrugs. For someone who just got fucked absolutely silly, he’s handling it remarkably well, but that illusion shatters when he starts to get up, but he can’t really move, and his cheeks fire pink once more. “Did they mean they want me to make the coffee? I’ll _totally_ get right on that, in… _just_ a second.”

“No, I’ll do it,” Kihyun says, watching Changkyun struggle, but finally, he can’t take it anymore, and he comes over to gently put his hands on Changkyun’s shoulders and keep him on the desk. “Wait here. I’ll get you the spare jumpsuit. Seriously, forget about the coffee.”

“The spare jumpsuit?” Changkyun says, eyes immediately going huge. “You mean—”

“No, no, it doesn’t mean anything,” Kihyun hastens to say, pulling away from him and walking quickly over to the equipment lockers, but it’s too late, Changkyun is beaming and swinging his legs around, energy restored.

“My very own jumpsuit!” he crows.

“You have to give it back tomorrow,” Kihyun warns.

“No way,” Changkyun hums. “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. I don’t care if it’s a clish, I live by that.” 

Never mind that he wears a three-piece suit to his work as the receptionist of a ghost hunting operation — what’s he indicating by _that_ choice? — Kihyun has a more pressing problem with that statement. He blinks at him as he takes the spare jumpsuit out of the locker, and hopes fervently that maybe he misheard. “Um,” he says. “What did you just say?”

“Clish,” Changkyun repeats, bright and confident, disarming Kihyun with his smile. “It’s _French.”_

Does... he... mean... cliché? God fucking damn it. This is the man Kihyun has spent the past seven months ceaselessly lusting after? He stands there blankly, the jumpsuit in his hands, and considers his options. Either he holds his tongue, recognizes a losing battle when he sees one, and lets the issue of Changkyun’s mangling of all known human languages slide, thereby shackling himself to a lifetime of turning a blind ear to malapropisms and mispronunciations (isn’t it _blind eye?_ Shit, Changkyun is already dumbing him down), _or_ he confronts him and — what? What would that accomplish or change? Especially now that, to his own dismay, Kihyun finds his stupidity painfully charming rather than infuriating. Kihyun looks to him again and finds that Changkyun has been smiling at him this whole time, not a single thought in that pretty little head of his. Fuck. _Fuck._ Kihyun has a degree in theoretical physics from Yale, and he’s going to spend the rest of his life with a man who thinks that _cliché_ is pronounced _clish._ Can he stomach it? Changkyun blows him a kiss, and Kihyun finds that yes, perhaps he can. It’s shockingly simple. Fully resigned to his fate, he sighs heavily and just brings the jumpsuit back over to Changkyun, who is eagerly pulling off the remnants of his shirt and sticking his hands out to receive his new clothes, blissfully unaware of the war over their prospective relationship that Kihyun had just waged in his own brain. 

“It really doesn’t mean anything,” Kihyun says again, his conviction weaker than before, and Changkyun shakes his head insistently, grabbing the jumpsuit from him and shaking it out so he can pull it on.

“Yes, it does. I’m finally a real Ghostbuster!”

“We’re not the Ghostbusters.”

“A real agent of the Paranormal Phenomena Preservation Project, then,” Changkyun concedes with a cartoonish roll of his eyes. He steps in with one foot, then the other, then hikes it up his body even though he winces from the soreness, and happily zips it all the way up to his chin. “I’m way more useful than you know. Didn’t I prove myself just now? I’m great in a crisis! Very level-headed, me.”

“Very,” Kihyun agrees drily.

Changkyun, as usual, takes it as the unvarnished truth, and beams at Kihyun again as he finishes strapping the security belt around his waist. “Well?” he says, putting his hands on his hips. “Do I look like I’m ready to be on the team? Don’t say no!”

 _Fuck, he’s adorable,_ Kihyun thinks resentfully, and doesn’t say no.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/paratazxis) / [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/paratazxis)
> 
> morosexual rights!...
> 
> i can never face my family again. please comment and let me know what jail u think i should be sent to for my crimes, or come chat at the links above. i also wanted the tone of this to be kinda fast and snappy like a movie, so lmk if you think i managed to pull it off!!! thanks again to rae for enabling me nskjdbfksj (as well as for a few choice lines in here which i borrowed from their tweets!!), thanks to lex for suggesting that i put the clish thing in here, and thanks to YOU so much for reading!!!! ill see yall next time ... BOO (ghost noise) !!!


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